But mostly cold, reports a dive shop owner who arranged an icy visit to the sunken tug Jenny Lynn on Saturday in Duncan Bay.

“We had nine divers who participated,” said Joe Lavender, co-owner of the Northern Michigan Dive Center with Craig Passeno. “Craig was out there with the group. The air temperature was nice, probably in the mid-30s, and the water temperature was probably about 30 degrees. Kind of nice, really.”

Lavender said the group had no problem navigating from shore aboard wheeled vehicles to the dive site just offshore from the Duncan Bay Boat Club.

“There was probably about 16 inches of ice on the bay, I’d say. Half of the divers wore dry suits and about half were in wet suits. We had a turkey fryer out there heating water to pour into the divers’ wetsuits before they jumped in,” Lavender said.

According to Lavender, underwater conditions were clear for the short stay each diver had on the Jenny Lynn.

“The sun didn’t shine, which was too bad,” Lavender explained, “but it was a lot of fun. We take a lot of safety precautions to make sure of that. Each diver is attached with a line to the surface. We tie off the line on a peg into the ice where they entered the water. They are down there probably a maximum of 20 minutes. Afterwards the idea is to get warm.”

Lavender said the Jenny Lynn is holding up well, considering it has been underwater more than two years.

“It still looks the same,” Lavender said of the wreck. “It’s dirtier and has a lot more silt on it. It is laying to the starboard side. Of course the roof of the cabin is peeled off from the ice of a couple of winters ago, and a lot of that has washed ashore. It was a very successful dive.”